Dizzy with Sunstroke
by madrigals
Summary: There's a term for that. It's called converting an on-duty contact into an off-duty relationship. We're not supposed to do it. Sherman/OFC, AU post season 2
1. part one

**part one**

_"My life closed twice before its close; it yet remains to see if Immortality unveil a third event to me, so huge, so hopeless to conceive, as these that twice befell. Parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell."  
— Emily Dickinson_

She knew her rights. They needed a warrant.

She was still trying to reconcile the fact that they had actually returned with one.

"Let us take you down to the station," the taller one, a male, had told her. Hair neatly trimmed and dress sleeves pushed up. He had spoken gently, an attempt at understanding. Was it how they spoke to people they considered victims? If so, she found it offensive. She did not consider herself a victim. Her life had been the happiest. Her world, her experiences... compiled of the utmost joy. No more than any other's. Her sorrow, her pain, had been typical. Pain that all humans embrace. Not willingly, but with acceptance, for it was how they grew.

Pain she felt in that moment was unlike anything else, for it was pain she could not accept. Would not. She felt pain because these strangers, she believed, were in the process of ruining her life. Chasing a case two decades cold. New leads had brought them to her doorstep, as an ailing grandfather slept peacefully upstairs.

"Just... hold on a second here," she spat, head in her hands as she sat on the armrest of a recliner, hovered over by detective, detective, and a gaggle of police officers in the doorway to the foyer; street cops, she assumed, called in to serve the purpose of the warrant. "This makes absolutely no sense. You can't just... no, this is ludicrous, I—"

The shorter one, an African-American female, crouched down in front of her, and held up a picture of a little girl — two years old at the most, photographed back in what had to be the late eighties. "Is this not you?" She demanded.

What hurt the most was the fact that it was.

Her breathless silence and quivering chin seemed to speak enough. "Let us take you down to the station," the detective backtracked, a little more gently this time. "We'll do a DNA test. It'll be quick. We'll have you out in time to pick up Josiane."

"And leave Pop here while these guys swarm the house? Yeah, right."

"Sophia, we have to talk to him."

"And I'm not leaving until _they're_ gone," she retorted, a slow, purposeful tone — the kind not many tended to trifle with. The detectives exchanged a glance.

Meanwhile, blue eyes followed her every move.

* * *

This whole case was a clusterfuck. Ben Sherman could agree with that.

A two year old kidnapped during an arson fire in 1989. The child never found, they were assumed dead and the case went cold. Until a witness remembered something twenty years later. The details were irrelevant, the fact remained that the case was reopened and several days later detectives were knocking on the door of an Eagle Rock home.

He knew what happened after that. The victim (the term used loosely) balked, demanded a warrant, and promptly kicked Adams and Clarke out. That was why he found himself there that day, alongside John and Chickie. According to the warrant, they were to assist in searching the premises for evidence, among other things.

Other things.

"Ma'am, I, uh — I know it probably means nothing coming from me, but what's the harm in cooperating?" Ben's hands rested absently on his belt, nonchalantly, almost out of anxiety. The victim arched a brow under the shade of a jacaranda tree and blew smoke out her nose. She said nothing, a steady gaze in his direction. "I mean, if they're wrong, you can just... move on, you know?"

"Does it not seem like I'm cooperating?"

Her eyes glanced in the direction of the front door, where Chickie was passing through with an evidence bag in hand. A single glance was confirmation, as if she were affirming to herself that this was cooperation. "Obviously, you are," Ben conceded. "I'm just saying, if there were a little less fight—"

This seemed to anger her. "A little less fight?" She echoed, flicking the ashes off the tip of her cigarette. Her voice lowered to a steely tone. "Officer—" a word that felt odd to use, given the man in front of her didn't seem any older than her "—if this was your life, wouldn't you fight for it?"

"If I thought I had been harmed in some way, probably not."

"You're missing the point. I _wasn't_ harmed. I was _happy_."

"Don't you think the Daalmans deserved to have had that happiness too?"

"I wouldn't know."

"They wouldn't know, either. They had that opportunity taken from them."

The victim grew silent, but her gaze remained unwavering. "That's not fair," she said quietly, after a long moment of unforgiving breeze. "Don't give me that guilt trip bullshit. I had a perfectly fine, perfectly _normal_ life until you people showed up."

"That's fine. But if you had been lied to your whole life, wouldn't you want to know?"

Silence.

* * *

A positive test result brought her world crumbling down.

Grief shook her petite frame in the worst way. The wind rushed out of her, and she remained like a fish escaped from its bowl on the curb outside the station; gasping for air with no relief from this hypoxic feeling. Light became dark. The boulevard became crowded at twilight with rush hour traffic. Santa Ana winds chapped her tear-stained cheeks. She heard nothing, not even the sounds of a homeless man shuffling up next to her and asking if she had a cigarette.

"Bitch," the dirty man grumbled when she didn't answer, and shuffled away.

Staring off into space was no solace, and yet it was her only constant.

The vague scent of soap and motorcycle fumes filled her nostrils, and it was for _him_, crouching down beside her, that she reacquainted herself with the present.

His eyes were the brightest of blue, even under the streetlamp glow.

He sighed. He touched her bare shoulder. He said nothing.

A moment. Two.

"C'mon," he said finally, nodding over his shoulder, somewhere in the distance, somewhere she couldn't see. "I'm sure your daughter's waiting for you."

"Josiane's not my daughter," she said immediately, her voice cracking with disuse; a mix of tears and disbelief. His brow quirked, just slightly, so nonchalant it almost went unseen. "She's my niece."

Ironic, she thought. One still clings to hope even in the face of infallible truth.

He pursed his lips, the kind of expression she liked to think they were taught in the academy — the kind of outward body language reserved for consoling victims, or indicating sympathy, or something. She ached, suddenly, for a cigarette.

"C'mon," he repeated once more, standing up and offering a strong hand. "Let me take you home."

She took his hand; even though she had never ridden a motorcycle before, even though she despised them with a passion, even though, in reality, Josiane was at a neighbor friend's house for the night and wouldn't be missing her. She took his hand, because he was the only one guiding her through a conceivable storm.

The wind blew, warm and stale, as she clung to him, the roar of an engine in her ears.


	2. part two

**part two**

Josiane's mousy brown pigtails bobbed as she approached the front door. She bounced lightly on the balls of her feet as she gripped the doorknob with both hands. "Who— um, who is it?" The tiny four year old called loudly, her innocent, childish voice lilting with the words. Just like Auntie taught her. No one could say she didn't remember. "Who's there?" She repeated. "Are you the ice cream man?"

"No, sweetheart," the door answered. "I'm a police officer. Is Sophia home?"

Auntie had always said to trust policemen, right?

The little girl struggled a bit with opening the door, pulling it ajar enough to poke her head out and stare up at the really tall grown-up standing on their front step. Her eyes widened in child-like awe at his uniform, indicative of LAPD. "Can I, um, can I hold your police man's badge?" Josiane asked innocently, reaching out her tiny fingers to him. She was immediately trusting.

Ben Sherman was immediately disconcerted.

"Sure," he hesitated, taken aback by such a question, reaching to unclasp his badge and hand it to the little girl. He wasn't sure why. It wasn't unusual for a child to ask. "Couldn't hurt."

Josiane was delighted. She ran her thumbs over the engraved metal, gripped it like it were the most precious thing in the world, and then immediately took his much larger hand. "Auntie is in the kitchen," she told Ben matter-of-factly, shutting the heavy door behind them with a grunt and leading him through the foyer into the aforementioned location. At the sight of her aunt, still looking out the window with her coffee — the one that looked out into the backyard, where the grass was looking neglected; where Auntie didn't often let her play anymore — Josiane announced happily, "Look, Auntie! I found a police man! He has a badge and everything."

Sophia nearly jumped out of her skin, turning around as she tried not to choke on a mouthful of coffee, just as the little girl triumphantly held up the glittering badge. She coughed, it nearly went down the wrong pipe. "Officer Sherman," she stated, sounding unpleasantly surprised.

"Ben," he corrected. He'd told her three times before.

She seemed to be fighting to keep her composure. Her hand trembled slightly as she tried keeping a firm grip on her coffee mug. "JoJo," she said, using one of the little girl's nicknames, "finish your breakfast, please."

"Can I keep the police badge?"

"Do as Auntie says, please," was the response; that familiar, no-nonsense tone that Ben had heard before, but in different shades. It suggested that keeping it was out of the question.

"Okay," Josiane replied, without any lack of cheerfulness, scrambling back to her place at the table and setting the badge down in front of her. "Officer Ben," she announced, plucking his name from the adults' conversation, "I'm gonna draw you a picture."

She set to work with her crayons, taking absentminded bites of banana as she worked.

* * *

"Why are you here?"

But Ben didn't answer the question. Instead, he pointed toward the kitchen from where they stood — the same brown shag carpeting they had first shared. It inhabited a room that still echoed with words that had changed her life. With his gesture, it was clear he was talking about Josiane. "She doesn't know?"

Sophia's brow was furrowed, and she appeared mildly agitated. "Is there a reason why I should have told her? She's four, Officer Sherman. She won't understand."

Maybe she had a point. "Ben," he corrected her quietly once again, before sighing and adjusting his belt. "And she might need to understand when DCFS comes out."

"_Excuse_ me? Just what capacity are you here in?"

He needed to tread carefully. Ben exhaled deeply through his mouth and blew out his nose. "A personal one," he insisted, and was quick to continue, "you know, as a friend."

"We're not friends."

"As someone who cares enough about this situation to show you an ounce of compassion, even when no one else will."

Sophia grew silent, and for the longest moment, Ben didn't speak. He sighed, then said, "You know they need to talk to your grandfather. And until they do, he's pretty high up on the list of favorite suspects. Josiane's welfare starts to come into question, they wonder how safe of a home environment she's lived in, how…"

He knew the look that was starting to take residence on her features. Sophia was pissed. She stepped forward, all but pointing, the requisite stance of a woman about to tell a man off. "Out of all that evidence you _yourself_ carried out of my home the other day, you should know that my grandfather — or whatever these people want to call him now — isn't capable of this. He's a World War II veteran. He built my family's contracting business from the ground up. He's had an upstanding reputation in this community for nearly seventy years. Not to mention that right now, he's upstairs dying of cancer, so please, _Ben_, tell me more about how he's a _favorite suspect_."

He tried to interrupt, but it seemed once Sophia got started, she couldn't stop. Her tone fell to a hiss as she continued, "And for the record, that little girl has been _deeply_ loved and _well_ taken care of from the moment she was born. She has never been in any sort of danger, except maybe from the stupidity of my sister's baby daddy and his irrepressible need to get drunk and crash cars."

"I'm not the bad guy here, Sophia."

"Oh, you're not?" Her tone was heavy with sarcasm. "My mistake."

"All I came to do was warn you that a social worker will be stopping by. Despite everything else, I know how much Josiane means to you, and I thought you'd want to be prepared. That's it." Ben paused, and fished out his business card, hesitating before handing it over. "And to give you this."

"You're not a detective."

"I know that. Don't you think I know that?"

Sophia's reach for the card was uncertain. "What I mean is," she began gently, grasping the stiff paper, "you have no reason to be interested in this case."

"You're not a case to me."

Moving or speaking seemed impossible for her then, so Ben acted first. "My home number's on the back," he tossed over his shoulder before returning to the kitchen to collect his badge. When he left, he had a rolled up drawing in one hand, and shut the front door quietly behind him. Sophia couldn't help but notice how he'd already made notice of the troublesome doorjamb, and the need to angle things the right way to get it to close properly.

She also couldn't help but realize that she was unable to react even long after he'd gone.


	3. part three

**part three**

"Pop?" She whispered, as a floorboard creaked softly beneath her.

He looked so frail. Sallow and old, engulfed by the hospital bed that had no place in this bedroom. She could barely remember a time before it, when this room had appeared like a place to rest and not a place to die. Medical paraphernalia overwhelmed it now. An IV stand and monitors stood vigilant by the bedside; close by were storage containers filled with the supplies needed by the home hospice nurses that visited nearly all day long. She'd tried to make up for it, arranging framed pictures by the bedside — a photo from his wedding to Gran, pictures from his tour of duty, various family photographs. But it was never the same.

Yet Pop never seemed to let it get to him. Sophia wished she could have that kind of attitude, especially nowadays, but she wasn't half the person her grandfather was. She wished she could convey that to the detectives standing just paces behind her. That she could make them see.

"Cricket," Pop croaked, and for a moment tears flooded her eyes. She sat on the edge of the bed and clasped his hand, doing her very best to not demand the detectives leave. She had no choice anymore. Adams, at least, hadn't balked as much to Sophia's insisting that she be present for the questioning.

"Pop," Sophia swallowed roughly, "these are detectives from the LAPD. They want to know about… about me. They say I'm not Mama and Daddy's kid. That someone stole me."

"That's preposterous. Of course you are."

"We have DNA evidence, Mr. Laurer, that says otherwise," Clarke spoke up, and Sophia really wished he hadn't, because suddenly her grandfather was staring at her as if she had betrayed the family. The look he gave her said everything she needed to know.

"You let these people into our home, Cricket?"

"I had no choice, Pop—"

"Your mother brought you home when you were two years old," Pop wheezed, his voice thick with irritation. "We hadn't seen her and your father in years. We just assumed…"

"But you never had any proof."

"You were ours. We loved you. We cared for you. It was completely moot in our eyes how we got to there from that point. And when your mother had Zoey, and she and your father just up and left — we loved you both. We questioned nothing."

The detectives were exchanging looks, ones Sophia didn't particularly enjoy seeing. Something was being scribbled down in their notes, and she did not like the possibilities. Adams was the first to speak. "Your daughter, Mia, and her husband — what was his name?"

"Tony," Pop said, looking ready to spit in disdain. "Common-law husband. We told her that man was trouble, but did she listen? No…"

"When was the last time you saw Mia and Tony?"

"1990. Two days after Zoey was born. The next morning, they were gone; the children left behind. We had no choice, we made do."

Sophia's eyes were brimming with tears. "Why?" She whispered. "Why didn't you tell us before?"

"And tell you what? You knew as much as we did. We had no idea that your mother hadn't given birth to you herself, or what had been done. Your grandmother and I, we pulled you kids up by your bootstraps and made sure you lived a good life."

She wasn't expecting this kind of emotion. Sophia had been certain she was past this, but evidently an acknowledgment of the truth produced something else entirely. She bit her lip so firmly there would surely be a mark, and it was with a grudging air that she stood, Pop's hand still clasped in hers. This was just what she needed, to prove the detectives right. She shouldn't have come in here.

"Cricket—" Pop wheezed, but it fell on deaf ears. Their connection was severed and she was gone, footsteps heavy down the hall.

* * *

"And how is she doing in school?"

Sophia eyed the social worker from DCFS with as much hospitality as she could muster, which wasn't saying much. She felt as numb as two Xanax would permit her. Upstairs, Josiane could be heard thumping around her room, dancing exuberantly to some children's pop record. It was a small solace.

"She's…" Sophia adjusted herself in her armchair, clearing her throat. "Her teacher says the same as always. She's very bright, very precocious. We're still waiting for her to come home one day predicting lottery numbers."

"But her work hasn't suffered?"

"No, not that I've seen."

"Have you spoken to her at all, about the situation?"

Her head bowed slightly, her fingertips moving to brush against her lip. It still felt a little sore from when she'd bit it in Pop's presence. She shook her head. "I don't see how she'll understand."

There were those eyes again. That sympathy that Sophia couldn't bring herself to grasp. "Well, I'm not too concerned. You obviously care very much for Josiane, and she is well taken care of. I see no reason to disrupt that. But with what comes next…" Sophia knew, the woman didn't have to detail it. The investigation, lawyers, an inevitable trial. "… I would recommend her seeing a child psychologist. Josiane will find out one way or another, and perhaps would have an easier time processing with a professional at hand."

The woman closed her manila folder. "On a personal note… have you considered moving Mr. Laurer to a hospice facility?"

Sophia was deadly silent.

"Something to think about, Sophia. You already have a lot on your plate. What you're going through requires a certain amount of grief, and you can't do that while dividing your attention between two people. Josiane needs you."

Silence.

"I'll show myself out."


	4. part four

**part four**

A lawyer had dropped off a letter that afternoon. The handwriting on it was unfamiliar, the creases of the envelope foreign; even the way it was sealed seemed strange. Sophia couldn't bring herself to open it, knowing who it was from. She stared at it for hours, until finally she shuffled Josiane off to a sleepover at a friend's house, and set herself up with a bottle of wine and a pack of cigarettes on the front porch.

She made one phone call.

He came after his shift, the roar of his motorcycle turning down the street announcing his presence before she even looked up. The smell of exhaust fumes lingered on him as he strode up the front walk. His hair was disheveled from his helmet. Sophia's eyes lingered on him, before she stubbed out her cigarette and lit another one, taking a haphazard swig from her bottle of wine. She couldn't be bothered to find a glass.

He sat down next to her, on the third step. He cleared his throat and said, "Well, you called me."

"I didn't know what else to do."

She handed him the envelope, still unopened. The look on his face was aptly quizzical. "A lawyer brought that today. I… I couldn't read it. I need you to read it."

"You need me to read your mail for you?"

"You _wanted_ to be a part of this."

Ben was silent. He set his helmet aside, wiped his hands on his pants and slowly undid the seal on the envelope. Sophia took another long swig from the wine bottle as he carefully unfolded the letter with it, silently reading every word. She watched him with an unwavering stare as he read, her eyes sweeping from his furrowed brow down over the bridge of his nose and cheekbones, to chapped lips and a curved jawline. Sophia could understand, with three quarters of a cup of wine in her, why she was so drawn to him, despite everything that told her not to be. He was handsome. He had this air about him, self-assured, slightly dangerous.

"It's your mother. Your birth mother, I mean."

Sophia sighed. She leaned back until her spine pressed against the steps and her eyes could focus on the barely visible dusting of stars in the sky. Her cigarette hung from her lips, and she took a drag, blew out the smoke, and flicked ashes away from her body, off the porch. She said nothing. Ben frowned.

"They want to see you."

"Am I obligated?"

"Legally, no. Morally…"

"So we're going to judge my morals now?" Her response came weary and without heat.

"No one's judging anything," Ben said slowly, studying the paper in his hands. "I'm not sure what there is to judge. This is the kind of situation no one ever fathoms for themselves, in any circumstance. This is your life, raw and sticky and, I'll say it, fucked up. This is fucked up. No one is denying that. I certainly won't. But ask yourself -" And his voice rose, as she was rolling her eyes by now, "- ask yourself, do you _really_ not want to know? Wouldn't you at least want to see what could have been? How things could have been so different?"

"Maybe I've spent too much of my life wondering what the flip side was. Maybe I'm tired of wondering. Maybe I just want to live my life."

"But now you're here. And shit happens, and it molds you, and it guides the direction of your life. So now you find yourself at a crossroads. Would knowing benefit you in the long run? Would knowing guide you, and shape you, and make you better for JoJo? Because that's who all of this boils down to. This is a family, wanting to know you. And your grandfather's on his way out. Who else is really left?"

Sophia was silent as the grave. She didn't like his honesty. She didn't like his straight talk, or how he seemed to know so quickly that it was the best way to get inside her head. She didn't like that his opinion came so freely, and astutely.

She didn't like that he was right. She was starting to think she never would.

"We're not friends," Sophia reminded him suddenly, irrationally.

"I know that. Don't you think I know that?" But his words also came weary.

He was quiet.

"I get it, okay?" His words were so soft that Sophia had to sit up to really grasp that he was talking to her. "I get it. I get secrets. I get the family things that no one ever talks about. I get not having anybody..."

"You get me," Sophia finished for him, just as inaudibly.

Silence.

Without another word, she handed him her bottle of wine. He hesitated before taking a swig of it, the taste of black cherry, cassis and cedar filling his tongue. It was a terrible cabernet sauvignon, but he wasn't about to say anything. It seemed fitting for the night in front of them.

The two settled in silence, reclined on the front steps, unmoving.


End file.
